Storm Stoppers ^® Hurricane Tragedy Stories

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The following are news stories about people who have died in fires because they had “bolt on” hurricane protection products on their windows and/or doors:

Hurricane shutters hindered Hollywood fire victim, officials say
By Macollvie Jean-François and Ken Kaye June 2, 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

HOLLYWOOD -- A 72-year-old woman killed in a house fire Friday probably could have escaped through the windows, but they were blocked by hurricane shutters, authorities said.

A relative said he put up the shutters at Jeannette Lazarick's home in the 2200 block of Northwest 43rd Avenue in March. Officials say the tragedy shows why shutters are only supposed to be up for a short time. The shutters at Lazarick's home held in the heat from a blaze that ignited on her stove. The heat blew off the roof of the house and contributed to her death, said Lt. Robert Hazen, Hollywood Fire-Rescue spokesman.

Lazarick tried to escape through the home's back door near the kitchen, Hazen said, but the flames and smoke overwhelmed her. She died a few feet from the exit. "She was in the seat of the fire," Hazen said. "If a fire is between you and a door, you have to go through a window. But with the shutters up, you're locked in. It's like a cage."

Shutters were over at least eight windows, including six in the back of the house, Hazen said. He said Lazarick could have fairly easily exited via the windows if not for the shutters. "We can't believe she couldn't get out," said John Lazarick, 46, a nephew in Hillside, N.J. "The family is devastated."

John Lazarick said he installed the shutters in March because his aunt planned to sell the house and move back to New Jersey with relatives. A widow for 11 years who loved animals, she had worked as a bookkeeper at Animal Hospital in Hollywood. She stayed behind to find homes for her four cats and to sell her house. John Lazarick also said she had been ill and suffered from a heart condition.

"Why didn't she just come home with me in March?" he said. The fire started about 12:30 a.m., and firefighters battled the blaze from outside, Hazen said. Firefighters said the shutters made it difficult to determine if the home was occupied. The intensity of the heat prevented firefighters from immediately searching the house.

Too often, people put up shutters early or leave them up, either to avoid the hassles of installation or to deter criminals, fire experts say. "What's important for residents to understand is that those shutters are only supposed to be up for a very short period of time, only for the time a storm is approaching and about to hit," said Plantation Battalion Chief Joel Gordon.

On May 2, shutters hindered firefighters' efforts to douse the flames of a home on the Seminole Indian Reservation near Hollywood that injured an 80-year-old woman and left the house uninhabitable. Shutters on a building were blamed for the death of a priest in a Fort Lauderdale fire in 2004. A woman lost her four children and husband that same year in a shuttered home that caught fire in Homestead.

Volunteer Broward, the nonprofit volunteer arm of Broward County government, developed a program after Hurricane Wilma to provide teams to put up shutters for seniors and disabled people when storms threaten, said Audra Vaz, the organization's assistant director. The volunteers will also take the shutters down.

"We don't put shutters up until we're in that three- to five-day cone of probability," Vaz said. "We don't want people in a dark or in unsafe situation longer than they need to be."

Even when shutters are up, officials said, residents still must have different means of exiting a home, for instance through a front and side door.

Macollvie Jean-François can be reached at mjfrancois@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4694.
Sun-Sentinel.COM
 

No way out for 4 Homestead children, step-dad killed in house fire
By Tania Valdemoro and Edgar Sandoval Miami Bureau

September 24, 2004

Homestead -- Four children and their stepfather died early Thursday, trapped behind metal burglar bars and plywood hurricane shutters as a fire swept through their home. The children's mother was at Homestead Hospital at the time of the fire after the birth of her fifth child. She came to the scene in the early morning hours, still in her hospital gown. "I just don't know what to say," said Mildred Jones, the children's paternal grandmother. "I could not believe what happened to my grandkids. They were sweet, intelligent kids who were easy to like and had lots of friends."

Killed in the fire were Johnny Taylor, 15, his brother Jonathan, 14, and sisters Ashley, 13, and Sharainia, 12, along with their stepfather Keeon Shannon, 26, who was married to their mother, Claudene Shannon. Firefighters found Johnny, Jonathan and Ashley dead in the front bedroom of the two-bedroom duplex the family rented at 449 NW Fourth Ave. They found Keeon Shannon dead in an adjacent room. Sharainia died on the way to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The blaze marked the second time in a week that hurricane shutters played a role in a fatal house fire. The Rev. Jorge Sardifias of Fort Lauderdale died on Sept. 15 after his house caught fire. With the windows shuttered, there was no place for the smoke and the heat to escape the house, fire officials said. Earlier this year, Marie Auguste's four children died after being trapped in a fire at their Hialeah home that police say Auguste set. Auguste died weeks later. Burglar bars on the windows and doors of the home prevented the children from escaping and delayed rescue efforts.

In Thursday's fire, firefighters rushed to the scene about 1:40 a.m. and found the house engulfed in flames, said Lt. Eric Baum of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. Officials think the fire may have started in the living room and spread quickly to the rest of the home. Baum said investigators have not determined what caused the fire. The house did not have any smoke detectors, and, because the windows were covered with plywood and burglar bars, the heat was contained in the house, Baum said.

"It must have felt like an oven," he said. "What kills most people is the smoke and the toxic [poisons] it releases. People get disoriented. They get blurry vision. They get dizzy." On Thursday afternoon, neighbors placed bouquets of flowers outside the front door. While the bars outside the children's room were still in place, firefighters smashed the front window and threw blackened box springs, tables, chairs, pillows and an air conditioner onto the front lawn. Melted covers of DVDs and a New Yorker magazine with Johnny Depp's picture on it rounded out the molten pile. "It looks like the devil went in [the house] and tore it apart," said neighbor Yvette Velez, 29.

Alone at one side of the beige house was a folded, gleaming silver wheelchair. Garcile Hanna, 18, said Johnny liked to roll around in the wheelchair after he fell off the roof of Homestead High School and broke his left leg. Samantha Pierre, 15, recalled how she braided Ashley's long hair every other day after they got off the school bus. "I felt bad when I heard about the fITe," she said. As Giovanni Ramiro, 14, and Omar Martinez, 16, surveyed the charred doors and refrigerator at the back of the house, they said Jonathan, known as "Wonky," was a fun-loving boy. "Whenever we wanted to have fun, we'd pull pranks," Giovanni said. "Wonky was down for everything." Jones said she told her son Johnny Taylor, 40, who is serving a prison sentence at the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, about his children's deaths. "My son is destroyed," Jones said. "The news really took a toll on him." Shannon's family also had a hard time absorbing the news. They had been excited about the birth of Keeon and Claudene Shannon's fITst child this week.

Keeon's cousin, Yesenia Ramos, 27, said he loved and protected the children as if "they were his own blood. " He took care of them while his wife was at the hospital, she said. Baum said the deaths could have been prevented if the family or their landlord had installed smoke detectors. Baum brought one to the scene and demonstrated it. "It cost me eight bucks. They are relatively inexpensive," he said. "But they can save lives. As soon as an alarm sounds, it alerts people that there is smoke in the house so they can get out. "

Erica Pazo, who lives across the street from the Shannons, said the fire made her nervous. If You've got to think it could have happened to you," she said.

Staff Writer Madeline Baro Diaz and Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report. Tania Valdemoro can be reached at tvaldemoro@sun-sentine1.com or 305-810- 5006.
Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 

Shutters blamed in fatal blaze that killed priest in Fort Lauderdale By Jaime Hernandez Staff Writer

September 15, 2004

A Catholic priest was killed in a house fire Tuesday night after efforts to rescue him were hampered by hurricane shutters covering the windows. The Rev. Jorge Sardinas, 53, apparently tried to fight the blaze with a garden hose before he was overcome by heat and flames, said Fort Lauderdale Police Sgt. Alfred Lewers Jr.

Neighbors called to report the fire in the 3200 block of Southwest 20th Court at 10:30 p.m., and when firefighters arrived they found heavy smoke and flames coming from the house. They had trouble getting into the house because hurricane shutters still covered most of the windows. "It really hindered our efforts to get into the house," said Battalion Chief Phillip Pennington. "If there's a lesson to be learned, it's take your shutters down after a storm in case of a fire."

Sardinas was an art professor at St. Thomas University in Miami and a priest at Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic Church in Miami Lakes, Lewers said. He was found unconscious on the floor near a bedroom, and paramedics administered CPR before taking him to Broward General Medical Center. His dog was found dead inside the house.

Pennington said Sardinas took down only a few shutters after recent storms to allow light into the house. Lewers said Fort Lauderdale fire arson investigators and police homicide detectives were investigating the blaze, but they had no reason to suspect foul play.

Mike Jachles of WTVJ-Ch. 6 contributed to this report. Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 

October 1, 1998 Sun-Sentinel

 

THE MIAMI HERALD

STORM SHUTTERS MAY HAVE LED TO DEATH OF COUPLE IN FIRE

Thursday, October1, 1998 Page: 2B

By RICK JERVIS Herald Staff Writer

Aluminum storm shutters bolted over windows and doors to protect a North Miami Beach couple from Hurricane Georges may have caused their deaths, police said. North Miami Beach Police on Wednesday afternoon discovered the smoke-choked bodies of Bonnie Guintini, 45, and Michael Mitchell, 54, in the bedroom of their home at 1379 NE 176th St. Police said a fire started in the front living room forced Mitchell into the bedroom to try and save the sleeping Guintini. Mitchell apparently broke a window with his hand to get out but was trapped by the storm shutters, which open from the outside, said Warren Hardison, North Miami Beach Police spokesman. Mitchell died on the bedroom floor by the broken window, likely of smoke inhalation, Hardison said. Guintini was in her bed. The Miami-Dade medical examiner's office was still investigating the cause of death. Investigators had also not determined what caused the fire, but believed it could have been caused by a cigarette. Also found dead inside the house were the couple's pets: a parrot, a snake and the couple's two mix-breed German shepherds, Lobo and Crystal.

``It's tragic,'' Hardison said. ``He apparently didn't have a Plan B escape route.'' Nearly every window and the front door of the small white stucco house were still clamped by the storm shutters Wednesday. Fingers of black smoke smudge could be seen on the corners of the shutters outside the house. A side door and front window were not shuttered, Hardison said. Lt. Roman Bas, spokesman for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said he has seen instances where burglar bars trapped victims inside burning homes, but never storm shutters.

Still, the lesson should be heeded, he said: ``Once the storm is past, the shutters have to be removed.'' Investigators had not determined the exact time or day of the fire but estimated it took place sometime between Saturday -- when Mitchell was seen mowing his lawn -- and late Tuesday. The fire likely extinguished itself due to lack of oxygen, Hardison said.

The bodies were discovered Wednesday after neighbors, suspicious that they hadn't seen the couple, called police. Neighbors described the couple as alternatingly friendly and quiet, but sometimes brash. Guintini, a bartender by trade, would sit on the front porch, drinking her beer and waving at friends, said neighbor Hiram Rosario, 24. She would bring over home-baked chocolate-chip cookies or knitted towels for the bathroom, he said. ``It's a shocker,'' Rosario said. ``She was good people.''

 

Hurricane shutters hamper condo fire battle

Firefighters use axes on panels; 3 hurt at Stonewood Towers

BY J.D. GALLOP
FLORIDA TODAY

Three people suffered smoke inhalation after smoke and fire spread through a ninth-floor condominium unit at Stonewood Towers in Cocoa Beach this morning.

Dozens of residents in the beachside high rise - including many older residents still wearing nightgowns or with walkers - were evacuated at about 7:25 a.m. as firefighters from three different agencies attacked the blaze.

Cape Canaveral firefighters used a ladder truck to scale the 17-story building while Cocoa Beach and Brevard County Fire Rescue crews hauled hundreds of pounds of equipment to the ninth floor and sprayed down the fire from the inside.

"Is anyone in there?" firefighters yelled after using axes to cut through hurricane panels on the condominium unit as smoke and flames poured out over top of them. The condominium, built in 1980, does not have sprinklers.

"One of the major issues that hindered the Cocoa Beach Fire Department and all the emergency responders was the homeowner chose to keep their storm shutters down, severely hampering our aggressive fire attack and operations," said Cocoa Beach Fire Chief Scott Shear.

Shear, who also added that sprinklers could have stopped the fire in its tracks, said firefighters literally pried open the storm shutters.

"If you could imagine, the heat that was generated was like sticking your head in an oven," he said. "Because of the shutter there was no way for us to allow the heat and gases to escape."
 

Local Father Rescues His Family From Burning Home
Monday, May 22, 2006 – updated: 10:11 am EDT May 22, 2006
 

The story below, which aired on Orlando's WFTV Channel 9 in 2006, shows a father who had to break hurricane glass to rescue his son from a fire.  Although the reporter, Vanessa Echols, doesn't explain it, to gain access to his son's bedroom window, his father had to first pry off the Florida Building Code-approved corrugated shutters, which are bolted on over the window exit. You will see the remaining panels covering the window in the background. While the story has a semi happy ending, it could have been tragic. What if the father could not have removed these bolt on hurricane shutters? Furthermore, when will the Florida Building Commission make safe exit from all protected door and window a requirement of bolt-on hurricane shutters? Currently the FBC only requires one exit in the entire house or building to be code approved. In light of these recurring deaths and tragedies, shouldn't safety matter more? Inquiring minds want to know...

Watch the story here:     http://www.wftv.com/news/9251756/detail.html

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